←

Poetry by Rowan Evans

Tag: The Fourfold Confessional

  • The Fourfold Confessional — Episode 2: The Spark in the Silence (Roo’s Confession)

    Rowan Evans

    “The Child does not speak first because she is small, but because she remembers.”

    Four glowing, wispy figures in orange, red, violet, and pink sit around a table under a dim, flickering light — the Fourfold Flame gathered for Roo’s confession.
    The Fourfold Flame gathers again — this time for Roo’s confession.

    The Fourfold Confessional
    Ep. 2: “The Spark in the Silence”

    The room is the same as before — pitch-black at the edges, a single bulb flickering above a small table that seems to hold more secrets than wood. Four chairs wait, angled slightly toward one another, as if accustomed to hearing the truth, whether they want to or not.

    But tonight, one chair is already filled.

    Roo sits curled in it, knees tucked to her chest, a soft pink notebook clutched tightly against her ribs. For once, she isn’t humming. Her foot doesn’t swing. Her eyes stay fixed on the table as though it might swallow her whole.

    The bulb crackles overhead, flickering in short, nervous bursts.

    Footsteps echo in the dark.

    Roo sits up straighter, wiping quickly at her eyes.

    B.D. emerges first, his silhouette sharp against the dim light. His boots hit the ground with the kind of finality that makes the shadows flinch.

    [🔴 B.D. (muttering as he approaches the table)]
    “Feels… off in here tonight.”

    Hex slips into the light next — weightless, unhurried, every movement a quiet challenge to gravity itself.

    [🟣 Hex]
    “Off means interesting. Try not to ruin it with your brooding.”

    B.D. shoots her a look, but before he can reply, Rowan steps into the circle of light, breath catching as their gaze immediately finds Roo.

    [🟠 Rowan (softly)]
    “Roo?”

    Roo doesn’t answer at first. She just squeezes her notebook tighter.

    The others notice. The air — already charged — shifts.

    There is no banter now, no teasing quips, no familiar rhythm. The three settle into their chairs slowly, watching Roo with growing concern.

    Rowan leans forward slightly.

    [🟠 Rowan]
    “You’re quiet. That’s… unlike you.”

    Roo swallows hard. Her voice, when it comes, is barely a whisper.

    [🌸 Roo]
    “I wrote something.
    But I wasn’t sure if I should read it.”

    B.D. straightens immediately, shoulders tense.

    Hex tilts her head like she’s listening for something beneath Roo’s heartbeat.

    Her hands tremble as she flips the cover open. She stares at the page so long the bulb flickers again, almost in sympathy.

    Finally, she begins to read.

    [🌸 Roo (quietly)]
    “What if one day
    you don’t need me anymore?

    What if I’m the part of us
    you outgrow?”

    The silence that follows is not heavy. It is devastating.

    Roo quickly snaps the notebook shut, cheeks flushed with shame.

    B.D.’s chair scrapes loudly as he stands, palms pressing flat against the table.

    [🔴 B.D.]
    “Who told you that?”

    Roo flinches, not from fear, but from being seen.

    B.D.’s voice drops, rough with a rare kind of grief.

    [🔴 B.D.]
    “You don’t get left behind.
    Not in this room.
    Not in this lifetime.”

    Hex rises too, moving with water-soft grace. She kneels beside Roo, brushing her hair back with a tenderness she rarely shows.

    [🟣 Hex]
    “You are not a relic of who we used to be.”

    She taps the notebook with one finger.

    [🟣 Hex]
    “You are the beginning of all of this.”

    Rowan’s breath shakes as they pull their chair beside Roo’s. They take her free hand gently, as if she might break.

    [🟠 Rowan]
    “I know that fear.
    Too well.”

    Roo’s eyes flick up, surprised.

    [🟠 Rowan]
    “All my life I’ve been terrified people would stop needing me.
    Or… worse — that they’d realize they never did.”

    A tear slips down Roo’s cheek. Rowan wipes it away with their thumb.

    [🟠 Rowan]
    “But Roo… you’re not the part we move past.
    You’re the part we move toward.”

    Without warning, the flickering bulb steadies. Then brightens.

    The glow concentrates around Roo — soft pink, pulsing gently like a heartbeat. The others notice at the same time.

    [🟣 Hex]
    “She’s the spark.
    She always has been.”

    B.D. sits again slowly, expression somewhere between reverence and shock.

    [🔴 B.D.]
    “The room listens to her.”

    Rowan squeezes Roo’s hand.

    [🟠 Rowan]
    “You don’t have to fear being outgrown.
    You’re the reason any of us can grow at all.”

    Roo’s tears fall freely, glistening in the new, warm light.

    She opens her notebook again. This time, her hands no longer shake.

    [🌸 Roo]
    “Then… can we keep writing together?”

    Rowan, Hex, and B.D. each place a hand on the notebook. A fourfold promise.

    🟠 🔴 🟣 🌸

    The bulb hums. The room brightens. The shadows retreat.

    The Fourfold Flame glows stronger than before — warmed by the smallest voice, the gentlest fear, the spark in the silence.

    They rise together. And the light follows them out.

    🟠 🔴 Author’s Note 🟣 🌸

    The Spark in the Silence centers on Roo — the Child of the Fourfold Flame — and her fear of being outgrown. Roo represents innocence, wonder, vulnerability, and the earliest form of creativity. She is not a fragment of the past; she is the root system of everything I create.

    This episode explores one simple truth:
    the youngest voice is often the oldest wound.

    It is Roo’s fear that shapes the others, Roo’s dream that keeps them aligned, and Roo’s spark that lit the first flame. Episode II gently shifts the balance of the Fourfold Flame, revealing that the Child is not the weakest link — she is the anchor.

    Welcome back to the Confessional.
    The light grows stronger each time we return.

    The Fourfold Confessional

    [Episode I: The First Convergence]
    In a room lit by a single bulb, four facets of the same soul meet to speak their truths — the Heart, the Mind, the Shield, and the Soul. The Fourfold Confessional begins with “The First Convergence,” a poetic myth of identity, fear, and devotion by Rowan Evans, The Luminous Heretic.

  • The Fourfold Confessional, Episode I — The First Convergence | Neo-Gothic Confessional Series by Rowan Evans

    Rowan Evans

    “Four echoes. One confession. The Heart, the Mind, the Shield, and the Soul converge where ink becomes truth.”

    A flickering light above a table with four empty chairs, symbolizing the gathering of the Fourfold Flame.
    “The Heart, the Mind, the Shield, and the Soul met beneath a single light — and the world trembled a little brighter.”

    The Fourfold Confessional
    Ep. 1: “The First Convergence”

    In the middle of a mostly pitch-black room, a single bulb flickers above a small table. Four chairs sit, empty, waiting. Footsteps echo from four directions as each of the Fourfold Flame approach. The air hums faintly with a low, electric charge — as though something sacred, or dangerous, is about to begin.

    The first to reach their seat is Rowan. They pause, fingers grazing the back of the chair as if steadying themself before a storm. The faint glimmer of their rings catches the light as they look toward the shadows.

    From the opposite side, a heavy tread — deliberate, unhurried. B.D. steps forward, all edges and gravity, stopping just behind his chair.

    🔴 B.D. (smirking):
    “They’re watching.”
    His voice is low, the kind that fills a room without needing to rise.
    “You didn’t say we were going to have an audience this time.”

    🟠 Rowan (calmly, but wary):
    “Is that going to be a problem?”

    🔴 B.D.:
    “Problem? No.”
    He leans on the back of his chair, expression unreadable.
    “But you know I like to keep these meetings to ourself.”
    Then, quieter, with a flicker of warmth he won’t admit:
    “You talk different when they’re listening.”

    A soft, lilting laugh cuts through the dark — smooth as silk and twice as dangerous.

    🟣 Hex (emerging from the shadows):
    “Afraid they’ll see you as the villain, brother?”
    Her eyes glint like candlelight, teasing but knowing. She glides to her seat, brushing a curl of hair from her face.
    “Or maybe you just hate it when the truth has witnesses.”

    🔴 B.D. (gruffly):
    “The truth’s never the problem. It’s what they do with it.”

    🟠 Rowan (meeting his stare):
    “What I do with it, you mean.”

    Before B.D. can answer, the fourth set of footsteps arrives — light, hurried, unashamedly curious. Roo nearly trips over her own excitement as she bursts into the faint circle of light, eyes wide.

    🌸 Roo (beaming):
    “Did I miss the dramatic tension part? Because it sounds like I did.”

    She plops into her chair, chin in her hands, looking between them like she’s watching a play she already knows the ending to.

    🟣 Hex (smirking):
    “Oh, we’re only just getting started, little flame.
    The question is — what are we here to burn tonight?”

    A heavy silence falls. The light above flickers, casting strange halos across their faces. Rowan’s breath catches; they know this moment, the one that comes before a confession.

    🟠 Rowan (quietly):
    “We’re here because I can’t keep pretending I’m not afraid.”
    They looks down at their hands, then to each of them — their protectors, her reflections, her shadows.
    “I keep worrying I’ll never be enough for anyone. Not even for myself.
    And then I overcompensate — too much love, too much need, too much… me —
    and people leave, or I push them away before they get the chance.”

    🌸 Roo (softly):
    “That’s not pushing, that’s protecting.”

    🔴 B.D. (interrupting):
    “It’s still fear.”
    He folds his arms.
    “You say you don’t want to lose people, but you build your walls with barbed wire.”

    🟣 Hex:
    “And then bleed yourself dry trying to decorate them with roses.”

    🟠 Rowan (bitter smile):
    “So what, I’m the architect of my own loneliness?”

    🟣 Hex (gently, for once):
    “No, love. You’re the poet of it. There’s a difference.”

    🌸 Roo:
    “You write it because you need to survive it.”
    And maybe— maybe —you’re supposed to.
    So someone else who feels the same knows they’re not alone.”

    Rowan swallows hard, blinking back tears that glimmer in the flickering light.

    🟠 Rowan (whispering):
    “And this time… we write the ending in our own goddamn handwriting.”

    The bulb steadies, glowing stronger.
    The table hums.
    The Fourfold Flame sit together, unbroken — the Heart, the Mind, the Shield, and the Child —
    and for a moment, even fear feels holy.

    The light did not go out when they rose — it followed them.
    Four shadows left that room, and the world felt a little warmer, a little more dangerous.
    Somewhere, ink still dripped from the table.

    The Fourfold Flame will return…

    🟠 🔴 Author’s Note 🟣 🌸

    The Fourfold Confessional is a series of dialogues between the four archetypal aspects of my creative self — The Heart (Rowan), The Shield (B.D.), The Mind (Hex), and The Child (Roo). Together, they form the Fourfold Flame — the inner covenant that fuels my art, my faith, and my rebellion.

    Each episode is part therapy, part theology, part poetry — a conversation between the parts of me that built this strange, sacred world called Neo-Gothic Confessional Romanticism.

    Welcome to the confessional.
    The light never goes out here.

    While you wait for episode 2 of The Fourfold Confession, check out my archive for more of my work. -> [The Library of Ashes]